Linguist-Educator Exchange

Wait — Is This REAL?

The reaction to my claims about nonsense words being, you know, nonsense, has been ongoing and wide — including four continents, pro-phonics people and anti-phonics people (I am neither), accolades and insults. I have heard about what people feel and believe and even think, but I have not seen any actual evidence to falsify my assertions. I’ve had my name dragged through the mud on Facebook, had people call me mean (uh-gain), and had my credentials maligned because a mom in Australia can’t find me on Google Scholar.

It has been incredibly stressful.

So I was really looking forward to my study session tonight with a 2nd grader I call Cupcake. We almost didn’t make it, because scheduling stinks. But she came tonight at the end of a long and busy day, even with a bad cold, eager to look at word sums and matrices and the stories of silent letters. I haven’t even told her yet that making a matrix in a circle isn’t a “game.”

Her mom had texted me a picture of her spelling list this week: words with <wr> and <kn> and <gn> — some of my favorites! Phonics says those digraphs have “silent letters” (which is not helpful) and rarely offers much more of an explanation; I told Cupcake we were going to study not only how these spelling words were spelled, but also why they’re spelled that way.

She chose <sign> off her list to study first. Of course she did! I have met many a true scholar whose journey started with a question about the <g> in <sign>. We talked about traffic signs and traffic signals, did a word sum for <signal>, and then we talked about signatures and the significance of whatever it is that signs and signals can signify. We talked about how the <g> in <sign> is a zero, but the <g> in <gnat> is just part of a <gn> digraph (a distinction no phonics phan ever understood, but this 2nd grader did). We saved the <kn> stories for last, but my favorite part of the lesson came while we were studying <wr>.

Edit: I realized after I posted and shared this photo that the title should be TRUE, not REAL: look in the upper right corner. But that doesn’t change the story at all.

While we looked at the <wr> words on her spelling list (including writing, even though she hasn’t learned about replacing a final <e> in school), I explained that bases with an initial <wr> pertain to twisting or turning. We picked a word from her list, <wrist>. I asked her what it means. She said, “It’s like an ankle, only it’s on your arm.” I thought that was a perfect definition. I asked her to show me how her wrist moves, and we compared it to her elbow. One twists; the other doesn’t. We talked about the word <wrong> and how when your sock is on wrong, it’s twisted, and how when you write, there are some twists and turns and you use your wrist.

As we thought of examples, Cupcake looked at me with a grin-crinkled nose and interrupted delightedly: “Wait—” she asked me, “is this stuff REAL?”

I thought this was a fantastic question, and I said so just as soon as I got done cracking up. I understood exactly what she meant. “Yes,” I said. “it’s real. I am not making this up.” I pulled out the <wr> card, the <kn> card, and the <gn> card out of my LEX Grapheme Deck and we began to look at them. “This is not a magic trick or some silly thing I invented,” I said. “It’s the real story and structure of the language.” I pointed to the Four Questions. She and her mom were so smiley and so amazed. Poor Cupcake had a runny nose and was yawning, but she stuck with me, because she was getting something real and she knew it.

Sense and meaning are the whole point of language, and written language is no exception. There is no need for nonsense. It’s not controversial or fruitless to study real things. It’s not even hard.

There is something about spelling that certainly brings out a weird nastiness in some people. I’ve been attacked and trolled quite offensively by spelling reformists for trying to help people get to grips with English spelling! In the gamut of things to be reviled for, helping people with spelling seems pretty undeserving to me! Anyway…

I loved this post! I’m always looking for ways that meaning is related to spelling and it was the first time I’d come across the ‘wr’ = twisting link. I get terribly excited about this sort of thing! (Oh, yes, a wry smile, wriggle, wring!) But I also feel the need to check things out for myself (not that I doubted you, Gina!). I went to http://www.etymonline.com and put in ‘wr’ and checked through the words there. Sure enough most of them had some link (even if ancient) with twisting. Very satisfying! But ‘write’? You put forward a good case and it certainly helps learners remember, which for me is the main thing, but it’s not really related to twist is it? And I wonder where that little wren came from!

Thank you for you comments, Johanna. You are absolutely correct to question everything I write, and to verify it for yourself. A colleague of mine asked the same question on Facebook about write. I was absolutely hoping some astute reader(s) would do just that. Here is my response to that colleague, and now to you:

Not every word with a has diachronic etymology pertaining to twisting or turning, but most of them do. However, there are excellent synchronic connections to be noticed. [Synchronic etymology pertains to relationships of meaning and spelling regardless of whether there is a shared origin (diachronic), like hear/ear or here/where/there or folk/fellow.]

“I’m working with a 2nd grader, so I made a decision to connect to wrist and to the other wr- connections we made, even though I knew that it did not share the same ancient root.

I knew, however, that there must be a reason, a diachronic reason, for that in , and there is: so is Germanic; is Latinate; is Hellenic. They all derive from the same PIE family [denoting ‘to scratch’]**; the three are distant cousins. That in the in is cognate to the in and the in .

“A [w] is a bilabial velar glide. A [g] or a [k] is also velar. You see the same relationship in guarantee/warranty, guerilla/war, guardian/warden, regard/reward…”

**BUT — your question prompted me to go back and have another look, just like my colleague’s question did. And this time I learned something new. So I posted this: “Wait — I’m wrong. Write does not derive from the PIE same family as graph and scribe — it’s origins beyond Germanic are unknown. BUT it does have a historical sense of scratching, scoring. The Germanic cognate of graph and scribe is carve.”

So we really don’t know the ultimate diachronic reason for the in write, but we have a lot of synchronic reinforcement of that spelling, even diachronically. I’m not making this up either.

Grapheme choice is governed by a series of competing influences and constraints; the optimal form is what surfaces (just like in a super-simplified version of Optimality Theory in phonology, for any linguists reading). It is the survival of what fits. There is a reason that whole has a WH, for example (think holistically), and it’s not because of its root (OE hāl). It’s because HOLE already means something else.

So why write? Because it’s not Greek (so RH is out). Rite is already taken, and needed for ritual. That clears that up, synchronically speaking. Historically, the WR was always there, and we don’t know exactly why, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make coherent sense. Spelling not only marks relationships of meaning; it also differentiates unrelated forms wherever possible. That’s why we have homophones. Every language has homophones, and they find a way to write them differently, if at all possible.

I really appreciate your long, considered reply. The whole synchronic and diachronic thing made me whoop! I never had the terminology for this before though I had a sense of it. Could we say that synchronic links are due to some kind of past spelling reform – ie, someone has tried to make a word look like other words with a connected meaning? Or is there another reason? Maybe the spelling has been more organic?

This to me is the key to understanding English spelling: “Grapheme choice is governed by a series of competing influences and constraints; the optimal form is what surfaces “. (Where was that quote when I was doing my MA these?!) This fact doesn’t satisfy my 2nd language learners but it’s the truth.

Thank you very much for what you share and your immense commitment and knowledge. I’m a fan!

Synchronic relationships can happen for a number of reasons, but they’e not random. Rarely is spelling the result of spelling reform in English. The common examples are Noah Webster’s elimination of the U in colour and honour, his reversal of the RE in centre and metre, and a couple other deliberate Americanisms. Most efforts at orthographic reform in English fail, and grossly. With good reason. They’re nonsense and they misapprehend the purpose of a writing system.

Spelling isn’t the result of the efforts of an individual or a committee; it evolves. The survival of what fits. My friend Doug Harper who writes the Online Etymology Dictionary has explained it to me that words have gravity, and they pull other words into their orbit. So it’s not that some King of England decided that ear and hear should share a spelling even tough they share no historical origin. It’s that over time, the optimal form is what surfaces.

Your second language learners aren’t what the language has in mind as it evolves. An orthography represents sense and meaning to people who know and use the language. No written language mapped itself out based on the needs and desires of primary students or foreigners.

Anyone studying O-G methods of teaching reading and writing, never mind those who study language and linguistics in greater depth, knows that there are very good reasons that “sight” words are spelled as they are. I’m amazed that there is even any controversy about this. Thanks for your articles!

Thanks Rebecca! I will say that not all “O-G” is created equal, but all O-G is phonocentric. I’ve written extensively about it. My own OG training never included explanations or understandings of why there’s an L in could, for example, or why caught is spelled as it is, or why friend is what it is (there is no IE digraph in friend). My OG training simply said “those are Anglo-Saxon words” and left it at that. Caught, by the way, is French. My OG training also did not equip me to learn **what** those “very good reasons” were. It’s one thing to say, “Science works.” It’s another thing to show people how. It is indeed amazing that there’s any controversy about any of it!

Pete told me last year that the best thing I could do to help my dyslexic daughter is study the structure of the English language…and so I have been doing just that. He was very right. I only wish I had a 20 year head start.

Our funny story of the week is using Michel’s Toolkit activity on position of TCH. We came to the word, lechery. My daughters are 8 and 10, and they were pretty happy when I didn’t make them look up that particular definition.

Keep on fighting. This world has all the Sallies it needs. Every Lucy is a gem.

Thanks, Sarah. Pete is not wrong! That is the best thing you can do for you daughter. I had to edit your comment because angle brackets make things disappear — I added the TCH. I figured it was either that or CH. Sory!

It took me a minute to understand Sally and Lucy. I will gladly take that. I love a lot of people named Sarah and/or Sally — your comment works whether you’re talking about or too. Ha!

I’m encouraging everyone today to consider donating to Etymonline or even just clicking on a few ads, if it’s been meaningful to your understanding recently.

Thanks, Patty! Questioning is integral to science, to any meaningful study. As is disagreement. As is evidence. You are so right about respect! And respect includes respecting other people’s intellect enough — even a child’s — to tell them empirically true things about language, with evidence, and to admit when we don’t know and when we are wrong. Respect never means looking the other way when someone you care about persists in opining without evidence or clinging to tradition under the mantle of science.

I have thoroughly enjoyed having Karen in some of my online classes. Maybe you can both take one together sometime!

Gina your last post really helped me with a student I have been working with. He has oppositional defiant behavior plus other issues, besides dyslexia. He was one of those student who had been bombarded with Wison, (including nonsense words) in public school and still could barely read or spell. Your comment about starting with ‘meaning’ hit home with me. So no card drills, etc any more Thanks so much.! You made both our lives easier as he has been extremely difficult to work with. By the way how do you do a circle matrix?

Hi Sue. I hope your planned changes make a big difference for you and your student. How frustrating for you both!

I put a matrix (or just a box, to start) inside of a large circle. I think it was Lyn Anderson who developed this; I can’t recall. Anyhow, words that share a base element (like please and pleasure) go in the matrix (square), and words that share a historical root, but not a base (like placid or plea) go in the circle. The circle has etymological relatives, and the square has morphological relatives.

So you kind of say that a word with a /r/ sound is probably spelled /wr/ if it has something to do with wriggling? Nice.
And when they read a /wr/ word, knowing about the twists and turns will help them get to the meaning and hence word accuracy? Nice again.
Or elegant, as you like to call these things.

I am saying that if a BASE ELEMENT (not necessarily a “word” — unwritten) spells an initial /ɹ/ (you can use /r/ if you want) with WR, it’s because it pertains to twisting or turning (not to wriggling, though wriggling is one such word), and it’s generally of Old English origin.

Most of these WR bases derive from an ancient word family that actually historically denotes ‘turn, twist,’ but some of them only have a synchronic connection. See my remarks about write in the other comments on this thread.

Also, there is no such thing as a */wr/ word. Slash brackets represent phonology: the first phoneme in ‘phone’ is /f/. Square brackets represent phonetics: a [ɾ] phone can be allophonic of both /t/ and /d/ in American English, as in metal and medal. Angle brackets represent spelling, but you can’t use angle brackets in comments because they’re also HTML: so I write the first grapheme in ‘phone’ is PH. There are WR words, not /wr/ words, in present-day English.

Please read up on these conventions on my About LEX page.

I’m not making any claims about “when they read a */wr/ [sic] word.” This is not a pedagogical blog. I’m not predicting what will or will not happen. I am offering facts about the writing system. If you would like to know what happens to a child when they are taught the facts of the writing system, I’d encourage you to find a child and study the facts of the writing system with them.

Many thanks. I apologise for not knowing enough linguists’ conventions. If I knew everything, I probably wouldn’t read your blogs. I wouldn’t usually say ‘kind of’ at all – I am probably as direct as you are. I apologise again – I was stereotyping you as a generic American – I notice many Americans say things like, “You might wanna take the next train”, rather than “Take the next train or you won’t be able to get home for 3 days”, which is what I would say.

I may not know the conventions of linguistics but I have taught many children to read and write, 1:1, and appreciate what you were saying about WR (see, I’m learning already!) words. I wanted to tell you I appreciate what you say. Appreciate as in ‘get it’ as well as ‘thanks’. I’ll stop if you don’t like it!

With my 6 year olds I would tell them that WR refers to twisting and turning, “Like when something wriggles”, and after that I would say “That’s a wriggle spelling of W”, or some such, so that the link was there. The words twist and turn don’t start with WR so I wouldn’t want to add in extra confusion. I work with so-called failing readers. (Reading Recovery trained)

I have been trying to think of twisting turning WR words that could not also be said to wriggle, and I can’t think of any. Maybe wreak as in havoc, but both twist and wriggle would be equally obscure for wreak? Did the ancients who invented these words ordain what their equivalents millennia later might be? I find kids understand that not everything is always as clear cut as everything else. They get it if we just tell them with no shilly shally, don’t they?

Using capital letters in UK denotes alphabet letter names, as a convention, as distinct from letter sounds which are denoted in lower case. Yes upper case letters ‘say’ the same thing as lower case ones, usually, in reading and writing, but most letters in reading and writing are lower case, so I start with lower case when I teach beginners. This is the regular way in UK. We don’t teach letter names and then expect children to be able to read with them. But you are not interested in pedagogy? I did see a video of a US teacher who got a child, a beginner, to say C. A. T. (see ay tee) and then read it as cat – is this normal over there?

I do enjoy your blogs, especially your responses to comments! There is never any rudeness, or stupidity, intended from me. I’ll admit I do enjoy your put downs of the phonatics…

No need to apologize! I sound a lot crankier than I am and I appreciate that no one knows everything. Nothing I appreciate more than a scholar who can take her lumps, and I aspire to be one. You are a quick study!

I am not terribly interested in pedagogy though I do teach. I am just weary of everyone arguing about the best way to teach X, when they haven’t got a clue what X actually is. I only care that what gets taught is actually real.

You can say wriggle if you want, and if your kids know that word, then great! I taught this very thing to a gown woman the other day who marveled that *after* she learned about WR from me, she encountered the word ‘wrench’ in her own reading.

If you teach real things about language, facts, then your students will encounter them over and over and over.

I ran a clinic for children with dyslexia for over a decade, and I know just the kinds of kids you’re talking about. They need and deserve the facts more urgently and desperately than anyone. Trust their intellect — and yes, no shilly-shally! How delightfully English of you.

Thanks Gina. It has been frustrating because I want so much for this bright boy and he has been so resistant. I love the idea of the circle and I think he will too. I also love all the comments in your blogs 🙂